12 November 2008

100,000 Cars Running on Windpower in 2013

The world's first offshore wind farm, at the head of Copenhagen harbour.Denmark has long been a world-leader in wind energy and now the country will act as a laboratory for the development of infrastructure for electric cars, using wind power to charge the new vehicles.

The main reason is that in five years Denmark will have wind turbine capacity enough for 1 million homes. This goal will be reached when the world's largest offshore wind turbine farm opens in 2012, between Anholt and Djursland.The offshore farm will look like this new one off the coast of Copenhagen.The colossal amounts of energy generated will also be used to power cars, in order to exploit the wind energy as best possible. The energy generated at night, when usage is low, will be used to charge the cars for use the next day.

The island of Bornholm will be the first test area and Peder Andersen of Energinet.dk believes there will be 100,000 electric cars in Denmark in five years.

It will be considerably cheaper to own an electric car. Among the test cars is an electric version of the Renault Megane with a top speed of 160 km/h. It will cost about 2 kroner for 8-10 km of driving. That's a third of the price for petrol [gas].

Kilometres cycled by Copenhageners so far today

Copenhagenize.com is the blog of Copenhagenize Design Company. Online since 2007 and highlighting the cycling life in Copenhagen and around the world.

40 years ago Copenhagen was just as car-clogged as anywhere else but now 41% of the population arriving at work or education do so on bicycles, from all over the Metro area. 56% of Copenhageners themselves use bicycles each day. They all use over 1000 km of bicycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen for their journeys. Copenhagenizing is possible anywhere.